Saturday, June 2, 2012

Summer journal

It has to stink to be the child of two educators. I try to be conscious of that. I will admit that I am a "tough audience" when it comes to preschool and primary curriculum since that is what I do for a living. We try to expose Grace to letters, numbers, writing, and reading in little doses here and there but also try not to overwhelm her or push her too much so she doesn't get "burned out" or start to hate learning.

The other day, when teachers at my school were cleaning their rooms someone left some handmade journals in the work room. (That is the place we put "good" trash that might become someone else's treasure.) I took two journals home and showed them to Grace. We talked about maybe writing a page each time we did something fun from our Summer Fun Jar. And that was it. I left them on the counter and didn't mention them again.

This afternoon Grace and I went to Safety Village and she rode her scooter for about 40 minutes. There was a little girl there learning to walk and it reminded me that Safety Village was the place that Grace took her first steps - 8 of them - until she noticed her shadow and got distracted! Ahhh, my baby!

As soon as we got home, Grace sat at the table with her journal. I started cooking dinner but noticed what she was doing so I joined her in the dining room. She said she wanted to write about the day and came up with the sentence, "I rode my scooter." I only helped her with how some letters are tall and some are small and the two o's in scooter. The rest was all Grace!

What a neat idea! I feel the same way-- not wanting to overwhelm Cate with school stuff to the point that she hates it. But this summer she is engaging in a pen-pal correspondence with sons of women I went to high school with. Both boys are Cate's age and they each exchange one or two short sentences in each letter and draw a picture. Getting mail is a new idea for all of them, so none of them feel like it is "work." 2 of the 3 of us moms are teachers. ;-) The other is a pediatric nurse.

Wow, Grace...You are so grown up! Aunt Phyl keeps a journal of all her trips she takes with Nana. One day, when you are older, Aunt Phyl will let you read all about Venice, Rome, Paris and Prague. Now, we are going to Spain, so that will be in a journal, too.